When we start working on a new initiative (whether in a startup or corporate setting), the possibilities are often endless. Too often we don’t spend enough time choosing the right problem to solve. We proceed to solve it with a beautiful solution – but the problem itself turns out to … Read More

This post first appeared on xconomy.com. What does the word “startup” mean to you? Many words can come to mind: new, exciting, experimental, small, lean, agile, fast. To me, “startup” mostly makes me think of “agile” and “fast.” In an early stage startup, everybody is focused on the same thing. … Read More

For all my recent writings about project management and associated tools, project management is ultimately about interacting with people. The best tools and methodologies won’t work if the project leader is not comfortable dealing with the human side of managing development. I recently moderated a round table discussion with a group of entrepreneurs, … Read More

This post is for product people who are new to project management. In my last post I touched on project management tools. What are some available frameworks and tools that can help us manage projects? Here are a sampling of common frameworks and associated tools. Your mileage may vary. As … Read More

Image credit: http://www.smartsheet.com/ Recently I’ve moderated many conversations on managing engineering development work. How do we set goals and objectives? How do we stay on track with timelines and milestones? How do we coordinate work? Many brilliant technical people can get a massive amount of work done by themselves. … Read More

This article first appeared on https://conceptspring.com/blog. What’s the number one challenge most product development teams face? Most teams would probably say: time. There is never enough time. Deadlines always come sooner than we want. How can we do more faster? When a product is relatively straightforward, the product team can … Read More

Who loves meetings around here? Come on, there has to be somebody out there who loves meetings. Otherwise how come there are so many meetings? Well… if you are a techie, you are probably with the inimitable Jason Fried, who universally panned “M&M’s” (meetings and managers) in this Inc. article. … Read More

An abridged version of this post was published on IvyExec.com. I just saw a really good article from Forbes on what constitutes a great, fundable, seed-stage startup team. Here is a quote from Ryan Broshar, the co-founder and managing partner of St. Paul-based venture capital firm Confluence Capital Partners. Broshar … Read More

Imagine you are a brilliant undergraduate student. With a few other students, you came up with a medical device that will completely transform how patients with certain chronic conditions can monitor themselves at home. You decide to start a company. After a few months of hard work, you landed a … Read More

In today’s connected devices world, where every hardware product also runs or interacts with a significant amount of software, every product development person needs to know how to develop software. This can be a bit of a culture shock for hardware people, who are used to a different type of development process (stage-gate, … Read More